The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood Pages: 304
Published by Roaring Brook Press on May 3rd 2016
Genres: Young Adult, Magical Realism, Romance, contemporary, Loss
Source: Paperback ARC from Publisher
This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.
Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:
To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.
Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to be broken.With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.
Today I have a very different interview for you guys. I have an interview with myself. I answered these questions back in February of 2016 and then I answered the same questions in April. I thought it was such a cool idea to see if/ or what changed, and how.
This Is Who I Am Now
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What Brings You The Most Joy In Life?
- Feb/March 2016: Seeing my boyfriend and family on the weekends.
- May 2016: Vacation time! I am planning my summer vacation trip to the mountains in July and also a camping trip in November and even though they are far away, I love planning for trips because it gets me even more excited for them.
- not much has changed here. In feb/march I was really excited for my weekend plans. I was totally working for the weekends, and now I am excited for planning my longer vacations that are coming up. haha
- Feb/March 2016: Seeing my boyfriend and family on the weekends.
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What Are You Reading?
- Feb/March 2016: Obsidian by Kimberly Loth
- May 2016: Love Charms and Other Catastrophes by Kimberly Karalius
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What Is Something You’re Really Looking Forward To?
- Feb/March 2016: St. Augustine Highland games.
- May 2016: My boyfriend moving back to my city. Not sure when it is going to happen, but I am certainly looking forward to that day.
- Feb/March 2016: St. Augustine Highland games.
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What Is One Thing That’s Worrying You?
- Feb/March 2016: My boyfriend and his family. They suffered a pretty severe and sudden loss and it has been weighing heavy on all of our minds.
- May 2016:When/if my boyfriend will get a good job that allows him to move back. I know it will happen sooner or later. I just want it to be sooner, rather than later.
- Feb/March 2016: My boyfriend and his family. They suffered a pretty severe and sudden loss and it has been weighing heavy on all of our minds.
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What Is Something That You Always Have With You?
- Feb/March 2016: my kindle and phone
- May 2016: my kindle and phone (some things never change)
- Feb/March 2016: my kindle and phone
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What Is Something That You Wish You Could Change?
- Feb/March 2016: death
- May 2016: The Job Market
- Feb/March 2016: death
Takeaways: I don’t feel like I changed all that much in a few months. I am still focused around a lot of the same things- work and my family/boyfriend. The main difference is when I sat down to do this interview in Feb/March my boyfriend’s brother had unexpectedly passed away and that shaped some of my answers and feelings. Honestly, it is something we are still dealing with, so I am not too sure that much has changed.
Read @BookBriefs interview with herself @Thisiswhoiamnow for the #SquareRootofSummer blog tour @hapgoodness Click To Tweet
The Square Root of Summer was an unexpected book. I am not sure why it was so unexpected because the summary certainly alludes to some kind of time jumping/shifting, but I was thinking it was more in a metaphorical sense. Like she was visiting memories in her head as a way to deal with loss, but she was really jumping back into points from her past. It was a surprising twist, and when I started reading about it, I just decided to go with it. I am not 100% sure how or why it started happening, but I was down for the journey. The other aspects of the book were as I expected, beautifully haunting and sometimes sorrowful. This is a book that deals with the loss of a loved one, and as you can tell from my interview above, I have been dealing with that as well. It is something that everyone handles differently. I loved seeing Gotti’s emotional journey.
I think Harriet Reuter Hapgood did an excellent job capturing emotions and pushing them off the page and straight into your heart. When the mood strikes me, I love a good- sad read. And the mood certainly struck me while I was reading The Square Root of Summer. This book tugged on my heart strings. It is all at once a book that deals with love and loss…two very strong emotions. It is a beautifully done young adult novel. I wouldn’t call this a fast paced novel by any means, but then again I don’t think of grief or loss as face paced. I think those are slow and lingering emotions and I felt that pour over into the dialogue and tempo of The Square Root of Summer.
There were parts of The Square Root of Summer where I was definitely confused. There are a lot of moving parts, and at times it felt like the characters and events were all over the place, but if you just hang in there, the overall picture starts to become clearer as you read. And I think The Square Root of Summer is a book worth reading.
#SquareRootofSummer by @hapgoodness is a book worth reading according to @BookBriefs See why & read her interview with herself Click To Tweet
As a part of the Square Root of Summer blog tour, FierceReads.com is hosting a virtual time capsule.
You can visit the site to see what different bloggers and authors would add to their time capsule and why.
I have the author, Harriet here today to share with us what she would add to her time capsule.
When I quit fashion magazines to be a full-time YA writer, in June 2015, the Marie Claire Runway team gave me this notebook and baller perfume. I can’t bear to write in it, it’s too pretty, so I’ll put it in a time capsule to remember how it felt to say “I’m going to be a writer”.
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